ARRIVA's Czech rail subsidiary Arriva Vlaky withdrew its open-access suburban service between Prague Masarykovo and Kralupy nad Vltavou on December 13, just three months after the start of operations.
THE Railway Research Institute (VUZ), Czech Republic, has issued Evraz, Russia, with a TSI compliance certificate for 920mm-diameter type BA 318 rolled railway wheels thereby allowing Evraz to start supplying these wheels to the European market.
GERMANY'S Federal Railway Authority (EBA) has finally approved the fleet of Siemens Velaro-D (class 407) ICEs ordered by German Rail (DB) for use on the German network, two years after they were originally due to enter service.
A GROUP of 17 Danish municipalities are calling for improvements to cross-border train services between eastern Jutland and northern Germany after a study carried out by Atkins concluded that significant improvements could be made in journey times on the Århus – Hamburg corridor without major investment in infrastructure.
A CORE component of the Mid-German S-Bahn network was completed on December 14 when the €960m Leipzig City Tunnel was officially opened in the presence of around 4000 guests, including the president of the state of Saxony Mr Stanislaw Tillich, the mayor of Leipzig Mr Burkhardt Jung, and German Rail (DB) CEO Dr Rüdiger Grube.
GERMAN Rail (DB) management board member for infrastructure and services Dr Volker Kefer announced on December 12 that DB will spend around €4.6bn on infrastructure renewal and investment next year, with maintenance expenditure set to increase by around €200m.
GERMAN Rail's (DB) long-distance passenger division, DB Fernverkehr, has issued a call for tenders to fit European Train Control System (ETCS) to its ICE1 fleet of high-speed trains.
GERMAN Rail (DB) subsidiary DB Regio has reached an agreement with Poland's Regional Railways (PR) to continue operating the cross-border RE 100 Dresden Wroclaw Express service.
THE European Commission (EC) has begun legal proceedings against Germany at the European Court of Justice for failing to separate financial flows between the train operating subsidiaries of German Rail (DB) and infrastructure manager DB Networks.
Train catering if it is done well has the ability to become a unique selling point for long-distance passenger operators, but it can also be an Achilles' heel if it is done badly. As David Briginshaw explains, while there is a wide disparity between what operators choose to provide, there is also considerable innovation.
